Man to Man: Defense of the human-ape link in mid-19th-century British scientific circles will open the 2005 Berlin Film Festival. Régis Wargnier (Indochine, East/West) directed this tale about how scientists get things wrong – were pygmies the missing human-ape link? – when they let cultural prejudices get in the way of scientific data. The English Patient actress Kristin Scott Thomas and Shakespeare in Love actor Joseph Fiennes star in Man to Man.

‘Man to Man’: Defense of human-ape link to open Berlin Film Festival

The 2005 Berlin Film Festival will open on Feb. 10 with the world premiere of Régis Wargnier’s Man to Man, about the defense of the human-ape link amidst scientific and cultural upheavals in European society. The French-British socio-historical drama stars Shakespeare in Loveleading man Joseph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas – coincidentally, a 1996 Best Actress Academy Award nominee for Anthony Minghella’s The English Patient, in which she plays the romantic interest of Joseph’s brother, Ralph Fiennes.

Set in the 1860s, Man to Man revolves around a group of British anthropologists searching in Africa for the “missing link” between humans and apes. Captured pygmies – later brought to the United Kingdom – are believed to be that coveted missing link, but a dissenting anthropologist (Joseph Fiennes) thinks otherwise.

Régis Wargnier, whose Indochine won the 1992 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and earned Catherine Deneuve a Best Actress nomination, co-wrote the Man to Man screenplay with Michel Fessler, Fred Fougea, and Ghanaian-born author William Boyd.

Besides Joseph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas, Man to Man also features the following:

Berlin jury president Roland Emmerich

German-born director Roland Emmerich, whose credits include a bunch of big-budget, special-effects-laden, lowbrow Hollywood productions such as Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, will head the Berlin Film Festival’s main competition jury.

Apart from Man to Man, so far (December 2004) only Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and André Téchiné’s Changing Times / Les Temps qui changent have been announced as entries in Berlin’s official film line-up.

From the controversial Man to Man defense of the human-ape link in Berlin to a documentary centered on the controversial Qatar-based, Arabic-language news network Al Jazeera in Dubai.

“You’re appalling, you son of a dog. May your house be destroyed!” one Egyptian woman yelled during a Dubai Film Festival screening of Jehane Noujaim’s Control Room, which offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into Al Jazeera.

The woman’s anger was directed at U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who, following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, is shown dismissing scenes of grieving Iraqis and bombed-out buildings as having been “stage-managed.”

The George W. Bush administration and the U.S. military have claimed that Al Jazeera is an anti-American tool for Muslim radicals, an accusation vehemently refuted by the network. Thus far, five Arab countries, among them U.S. allies Iraq and the Muslim kingdom of Saudi Arabia, have banned the news station.

And according to Al Jazeera itself, to date Control Room has not been distributed in any Arab nation.

Orlando Bloom & Morgan Freeman at Dubai Film Festival

Noujaim’s documentary was one of dozens of films presented at the first edition of the Dubai Film Festival, which is supposed to serve as a cultural bridge between the Muslim and the non-Muslim worlds.

Orlando Bloom, best known for Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and three-time Academy Award nominee Morgan Freeman (as Best Supporting Actor for Street Smart, 1987; as Best Actor for Driving Miss Daisy, 1989, and The Shawshank Redemption, 1994) were two Hollywood celebrities in attendance at Dubai in early December.

Additionally, festival organizers announced that more than 70 top-rated Arab performers, producers, and directors from Egypt, Syria, and Kuwait took part in the event. Among those were actors Duraid Lahham and Laila Olwi, directors Ali Badrakhan and Hala Khalil, and producers Safwat Ghatas and Mohamed Hussein Ramzy.

Fanny and Alexander DVD: Bertil Guve and Pernilla Allwin are the two young leads in Ingmar Bergman’s 1982 classic that earned the veteran filmmaker his third and last Best Director Academy Award nomination. In all, Fanny and Alexander won four Oscars: Best Foreign Language Film, Best Cinematography (Sven Nykvist), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Anna Asp and Susanne Lingheim), and Best Costume Design (Marik Vos-Lundh). Ingmar Bergman’s previous two Best Director nods had been for Cries & Whispers (1973) and Face to Face (1976).

In November 2004, the Criterion Collection released a special five-disc set of Ingmar Bergman’s final feature film, the 1982 classic Fanny and Alexander / Fanny och Alexander. The psychological family drama won a number of international awards, including the 1983 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

Criterion’s DVD set includes both the three-hour theatrical version of Fanny and Alexander, and the 1983 five-hour version – which Bergman himself prefers – that was originally shown on Swedish television.

Extras include a “making of” documentary and a 1984 interview with the director for Swedish TV.

‘Short Cuts’ Criterion DVD

Another late 2004 Criterion release is Robert Altman’s multi-storied 1993 comedy-drama Short Cuts, for which Altman received his fourth Best Director Academy Award nomination. Short Cuts’ extensive cast includes the following:

‘Gone with the Wind’ four-disc DVD set

Lastly, a four-disc special edition of Gone with the Wind, the 1939 blockbuster and Best Picture Oscar winner based on Margaret Mitchell’s sprawling novel about love in times of Civil War, is another important late 2004 DVD release – courtesy of Warner Bros.

Directed by (George Cukor replacement) Victor Fleming, with some assistance from Sam Wood and William Cameron Menzies, besides de Havilland (a Best Supporting Actress nominee that year) Gone with the Wind features the following:

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